Today, we're going to unveil the new FF prediction market. It's basically a way to put your karma where your mouth is.

From Wikipedia:

Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event (e.g., will the next US president be a Republican) or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter. Other names for prediction markets include information markets, decision markets, idea futures, event derivatives, and virtual markets.

The FF prediction market won't use cash, but karma. You can think of it as a poll where voting costs you one daily karma. You can only take one position in a given event, but you can buy more than one vote (up to your currently available daily karma). The people who voted for the winning option get all the karma from the losers.

For example, one prediction event might be:

Hillary will get the 2008 democratic nomation.

Two options:
Pro and con

Suppose people bought 100 pro options, and 50 con options. (You can only buy one type of option, so you can't buy both a pro and a con.)

Then if Hillary gets the nomination, the 50 con options are worth 50 karma, and these are divided up and given to the pro side who correctly predicted that event.

The winning karma is kept in a new record called prediction karma, and we'll have a separate leaderboard for the best predictors.

We get to alpha test this new software feature before any other XP sites, so it should be interesting to see what kinds of predictions people will make.

We're starting off with a few standard categories like: politics, sports, finance, FF, etc. Anybody can create a new prediction event, but a moderator must approve all new events. This is to ensure that it has a proper ending condition when there are more than two options available.

For example, if you create an event like this: Who will win the 2008 US presidential election? And you only provide 4 candidates, but none of them actually win, then that's a bad event. In that case, adding an "other" option would make it work.

Predictions have a deadline date by which the event must occur. For sports related predictions, this is usually the beginning of the game. A moderator would then close out that prediction at the end of the game and indicate which team won.

For events that may or may not happen (eg., Israel will bomb Iran's nuclear reactor by December 1, 2007 with Pro and Con options), a moderator will need to close out the event if it occurs before the deadline, or when the deadline hits and the event didn't occur. Options bought after the prediction happened will be voided with no refund given.

To make it meaningful, it will cost you your daily karma to buy options. This means people will have to decide between karmatizing comments or buying options in the prediction market, since both will use up your daily karma. If this restriction prevents adequate enjoyment of the market, then we might try something different later.

When it goes live later, the link to use will be: www.fuckfrance.com . . .

(I'll update this message when it goes live.)

Have fun and let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions. We're planning on adding stats tracking to see how successful people are predicting events, etc.

Shon

I predict a huge success.

I predict that Fredmasse will declare "9999" to be the "perfect number" in a karma-whoring thread in a few weeks.

I Predict more car burning in france.fuck fred the devils spawn.

The idea is fun (so it doesn't come from Prescott )

Three remarks from a karma expert:

* 1 *
could the computer calculate/actualize the odds?
In your Hillary example, I might think she'll win,
but bet against in hopes of a *2 reward rather than a 0.5

* 2 *
in the example, people having bet 100ks would share 50ks
0.5k per bet. How do you round it up?

* 3 *
Why require to bet all of one's total daily allotment?
Let people bet according to the amount of certainty they feel
(and according to their daily allotment, which may vary over time )

but a moderator must approve all new events.

A moderator would then close out that prediction at the end of the game and indicate which team won.

a moderator will need to close out the event if it occurs before the deadline

I assume a pay raise is included with this increase in workload?

Ten percent is fine with me, but Simple may demand more.

The winning karma is kept in a new record called prediction karma,

Queenie's not going to be happy with this, it will make it harder for him to lie about his predictions!



I predict some fun ahead.

I predict you are not going to fix the cache file bug soon.


How many K I get ?

OOOO hhhh, this sounds like gambling and that's the devil's playground!

I like it

could the computer calculate/actualize the odds?
In your Hillary example, I might think she'll win,
but bet against in hopes of a *2 reward rather than a 0.5

Yes, the event description will will tell you what each option is worth.

in the example, people having bet 100ks would share 50ks
0.5k per bet. How do you round it up?

Prediction karma will have decimals just for this reason.

Why require to bet all of one's total daily allotment?

You don't--you can buy one or as much as your remaining daily karma for any given option.

I assume a pay raise is included with this increase in workload?

Of course! I think FF may need to skim some karma off the top of each winning prediction to pay the mods their due. However, since a couple of our mod employees are based in Europe, the EU contacted us in advance saying this extra work would push mods over the 35 hour work week, so we're still in negotiations as to what a fair karma compensation plan would entail. Damn that Simple mod.

I predict you are not going to fix the cache file bug soon.


How many K I get ?

None, because we have no bugs! Bahahaa! (What cache file bug? It's probably a feature!)

Too bad I never make "predictions"...

Lighten up Atlantic, and make a few.

None, because we have no bugs! Bahahaa! (What cache file bug? It's probably a feature!)

Stop making us believe you have a whole team working on this website. Or maybe you are using a Royal We here...

Well, if you are tired to work on this forum - I gave my share into several internet project and I know what it is about - maybe you should be honest and ask for a hand instead to let such features. I haven't donated for this website and I won't do so. But if you still have a - slim - respect for those who did, you ought to hand over the technical part of this website to someone who is more knowledgable and available than you.

Lighten up Atlantic, and make a few.

Like this?

Lying Queen today:

Too bad I never make "predictions"...

Queenie on Tue Nov 02, 2004

I have placed my bet in the 2 threads about the election turnout, and still think Kerry is about to win with between 275 and 290.

Your ability to lie without consecience is amazing.

So, no, the election turnout will have no effect on my decision, I am really leaving for good.

Can anyone predict when the page 2 bug (posts are not displayed for a long time) will be fixed?

Shon...how about a Karma Texas Hold'em tournament.

I still want a hat.

And screw the polar bears, let them learn to swim from Teddy Kennedy.

What cache file bug? It's probably a feature

I think it happens on the third page of a thread. Comments don't appear even though the thread gets bumped. At some point, when there are like 10 comments on the 3rd page the comments appear. This happens on every subsequent page of the thread.

Caz's trick is to go back to one of your non-appearing posts, which you have to find by cycling through the post ids, since post history is deactivated in the profiles, and edit it. That somehow flushes the cache.

I predict my next dump is going to smell pretty bad .

Fuck the muzz

Fuck allah

I pre-dicked I'm getting a hard-on...



yup, I am.




No where's my K

I predict that it will be seen as a bad idea to allow the French and Democrats to cheer troop deaths and 9/11 victims before the "bury threads" option was implemented.

I give it about.... now.

I predict that Whatcha will do anything possible to live on welfare.

Caz's trick is to go back to one of your non-appearing posts, which you have to find by cycling through the post ids, since post history is deactivated in the profiles, and edit it. That somehow flushes the cache.

No need to go back to a non-appearing posts. It works on ANY comments from the same thread. You will need to find back your non-appearing post only if it is too late to edit one of your comment from the particular thread.

I guess the cache file system handle the event "edit" and not "post". Or order the thread by the last edit rather than the last post. Anyway, it is just a matter of a couple of minute to fix that feature.

Shit, there's no way I'm SPENDING Karma. Karma is meant to be stored away.

cool i should clean up every now and then

I predict the contiMentals and other assorted anti American riff raff will fuckin choke 89.68 % of Le time